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Curriculum design should always begin with the end in mind. In that first meeting with clients who have hired me to design or redesign curriculum I always ask, “What do you want the training participants to be able to do out there, outside of your classroom or training room, that you want to take responsibility for in this training?” This question almost always redirects the conversation away from ‘what we want the curriculum to cover,’ to ‘what we want to train our participants to do in their life; as worker, family member or community member.’ Asking about the end result first, (in design lingo, identifying the rest-of-life outcome), provides a target around which the instructional design is then aimed. Beginning with the end in mind drives the instructional design process in a way that stays focused on the adult learner and his needs in his rest-of-life roles.
If for example, we want to support an adult learner in successfully seeking and obtaining gainful employment (Rest-of-Life Outcome), we have just described what he will be able to do in his role as job seeker.
Next we ask, given this outcome, what performance task will he need to perform in our class or training that will give us a reasonable indication that he can successfully meet this outcome? This question guides us in designing a performance task that is an application or simulated application of seeking and obtaining gainful employment. In this course, the performance task might be, participate in a videotaped, mock interview and demonstrate effective interview skills according to a scoring guide that articulates the interview skills learned and practiced throughout the course. The other surprise in this scenario is that we don’t whip out the scoring guide on mock interview day. Instead, we give the adult learner the scoring guide long before his videotaped interview, during the prep period, because research tells us that adults perform better when they know the criteria for success!
Working backwards some more in our design, next we ask, given the outcome and performance task, what skills will this learner need to successfully perform the task and meet the outcome? From this question we can easily generate a list of interview and job search skills, including but not limited to effective speaking and listening skills, writing cover letters, identifying personal strengths and practicing a story that demonstrates how those strengths have uniquely prepared you for the position for which you are applying, and so on.
The next design step after generating a list of skills is to ask, what are the concepts and issues related to these skills? In other words what must the job seeker/adult learner understand in order to transfer the skills to novel scenarios not practiced in class? A concept might be, how we behave (thorough, prompt, neat, on time, courteous, creative) in the application/interview process is an indication to the prospective employer of how we might behave on the job. An issue might be, our relative lack of experience in a new career if we’ve been forced (or have chosen) to change careers, or have been out of the work place for several years. These concepts and issues require airtime, discussion and exploration as a support to the skills we will also be teaching.
Only now at the end do we ask, so what content should this course or training cover? By starting with the end first and asking what we want the adult learner to be able to do in his rest-of-life role, we are much more prepared to design content and activities that have a laser beam focus on helping the learner perform this role with success. Because we’ve identified the outcome, performance task, skills, and concepts and issues related to the outcome, we have, in essence identified the content.
By designing backwards in this way, we have the best chance of providing value because we know that adult learners show up for, pay for, sit through or participate in learning because they want to solve a problem in their lives either personally or professionally. When we start with the end in mind and nail down the rest-of-life outcome that tells what the learner will be able to do, and design backwards, we have a much better chance of designing in a way that will support the learner in accomplishing his goal.
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